Battles in Syria’s Northeast Rage On

As people assemble at cafés and speak out openly for the first time in decades, the country’s new leader has organized a national unity summit in Damascus and welcomed international dignitaries.

Battles that have been raging for years, meanwhile, continue 400 kilometers away in northeastern Syria, an area outside the Damascus government’s jurisdiction. While hundreds of people have been forced to evacuate their homes due to artillery fire and airstrikes, drones are buzzing overhead day and night.

A largely Syrian Arab militia supported by Turkey and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, backed by the United States, are engaged in combat there. And since Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s longstanding tyrant, was overthrown by Islamist rebels in early December, the conflict has only gotten more intense.

This struggle has multiple stakes, including the ability of Ahmed al-Shara, the new temporary president, to bring the country together, manage its numerous armed religious and ethnic factions, and contain the terrorist organization Islamic State, which has started to regain ground in some areas of Syria. Countries that are close by are concerned that instability from a variety of groups may spread beyond their boundaries.

The future of Syria’s Kurds, an ethnic minority comprising around 10% of the country’s population, is also in jeopardy. In northeastern Syria, the Kurds have established a semiautonomous territory over time.

The Turkish government’s increasing dominance over the Kurds, whom it considers a danger both domestically and in neighboring Syria due to certain militant Kurdish factions’ drive for a separate state, is one of the main factors fueling the conflict in the northeast.

The commander of the P.K.K., the Kurdish separatist movement that has waged a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state, called on his soldiers to dissolve and lay down their weapons last week, giving President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey a win at home. The P.K.K. announced a cease-fire in Turkey on Saturday, two days after the leader, Abdullah Ocalan, made the call.

Due to its connections to the rebel organization that toppled Mr. al-Assad, Turkey has also gained more clout in Syria in recent months.